Panaji, Dec 7 (IANS) A controversial Arabic pamphlet found on a chartered flight from Manchester to Goa that triggered a terror alarm here contains a quote of German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, ‘What does not kill me, makes me stronger’, official sources said.
The sources told IANS Wednesday that the pamphlet – found under seat R-4 Tuesday – is largely written in Arabic but also has Nietzsche’s famous quote jotted down in English.
‘It’s partly in English and Arabic. The pamphlet was found near seat ‘R-4′ while a standard post deplaning security check was being conducted,’ a source said, adding that the plane, a Thomson airways chartered tourist flight, had Tuesday landed at the Dabolim airport from Manchester, carrying 219 passengers, all of them tourists from Britain.
‘All 11 crew members on the flight Tom-158 were questioned about the pamphlet, but they had no idea who it could belong to. The flight captain, John Huddle, was also questioned,’ the official said, adding that the list of chartered tourists and hotels they were booked in were already being physically verified by police.
‘We have already submitted a copy of the pamphlet to the relevant central agency for examination. Prima facie there is nothing serious which has surfaced,’ the official said.
Nietzsche, a radical philosopher, is well known for his critique of morality and religion and promotion of the doctrine of nihilism.
The alert comes less than two weeks before Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s impending visit to Goa and a day after the state government formally announced there was specific intelligence input about a possible terror strike in the tourist state.
Singh is likely to visit Goa Dec 18 in order to participate in the celebrations of Goa’s 50th anniversary of liberation from Portuguese rule.
This is the not the first time a document found on a chartered plane from Manchester to Goa has triggered an alarm in the state’s security apparatus. In December 2008, a similar alarm was triggered, after a certificate belonging to one Asim Naz, issued by the Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education in Pakistan’s Gujranwala region, was found abandoned near the arrival lounge of the Dabolim airport.
Naz’s name was not mentioned on the flight’s passenger manifesto.
